NAME¶
mimetype - Determine file type
SYNOPSIS¶
mimetype [options] [-] files
DESCRIPTION¶
This script tries to determine the mime type of a file using the Shared
MIME-info database. It is intended as a kind of
file(1)
work-alike, but uses mimetypes instead of descriptions.
If one symlinks the
file command to
mimetype it will behave a
little more compatible, see "--file-compat". Commandline options to
specify alternative magic files are not implemented the same because of the
conflicting data formats. Also the wording of the descriptions will differ.
For naming switches I followed the manpage of
file(1) version 4.02 when
possible. They seem to differ completely from the spec in the 'utilities'
chapter of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (POSIX).
OPTIONS¶
- -a, --all
- Show output of all rules that match the file.
TODO: this method now just returns one match for each method (globs, magic,
etc.).
- -b, --brief
- Do not prepend filenames to output lines (brief mode).
- --database=mimedir:mimedir:...
- Force the program to look in these directories for the
shared mime-info database. The directories specified by the basedir
specification are ignored.
- -d, --describe
- Print file descriptions instead of mime types, this is the
default when using "--file-compat".
- -D, --debug
- Print debug information about how the mimetype was
determined.
- -f namefile,
--namefile=namefile
- Read the names of the files to be examined from the file
'namefile' (one per line) before the argument list.
- --file-compat
- Make mimetype behave a little more file(1)
compatible. This is turned on automatically when you call mimetype by a
link called 'file'.
A single '-' won't be considered a separator between options and filenames
anymore, but becomes identical to "--stdin". ( You can still use
'--' as separator, but that is not backward compatible with the original
file command. ) Also the default becomes to print descriptions instead of
mimetypes.
- -F string,
--separator=string
- Use string as custom separator between the file name and
its mimetype or description, defaults to ':' .
- -h, --help
- -u, --usage
- Print a help message and exits.
- -i, --mimetype
- Use mime types, opposite to "--describe", this is
the default when _not_ using "--file-compat".
- -L, --dereference
- Follow symbolic links.
- -l code, --language=code
- The language attribute specifies a two letter language
code, this makes descriptions being outputted in the specified
language.
- -M, --magic-only
- Do not check for extensions, globs or inode type, only look
at the content of the file. This is particularly useful if for some reason
you don't trust the name or the extension a file has.
- -N, --noalign
- Do not align output fields.
- --output-format
- If you want an alternative output format, you can specify a
format string containing the following escapes:
%f for the filename
%d description
%m mime type
Alignment is not available when using this, you need to post-process the
output to do that.
- --stdin
- Determine type of content from STDIN, less powerful then
normal file checking because it only uses magic typing. This will happen
also if the STDIN filehandle is a pipe.
To use this option IO::Scalar needs to be installed.
- -v, --version
- Print the version of the program and exit.
ENVIRONMENT¶
- XDG_DATA_HOME
- XDG_DATA_DIRS
- These variables can list base directories to search for
data files. The shared mime-info will be expected in the "mime"
sub directory of one of these directories. If these are not set, there
will be searched for the following directories:
$HOME/.local/share/mime
/usr/local/share/mime
/usr/share/mime
See also the "XDG Base Directory Specification"
http://freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec
<http://freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec>
FILES¶
The base dir for all data files is determined by two environment variables, see
"ENVIRONMENT".
- BASE/mime/packages/SOURCE.xml
- All other files are compiled from these source files. To
re-compile them use
update-mime-database(1).
- BASE/mime/globs
- Compiled information about globs.
- BASE/mime/magic
- Compiled information about magic numbers.
- BASE/mime/MEDIA/SUBTYPE.xml
- Descriptions of a mimetype in multiple languages, used for
the "--describe" switch.
DIAGNOSTICS¶
If a file has an empty mimetype or an empty description, most probably the file
doesn't exist and the given name doesn't match any globs. An empty description
can also mean that there is no description available in the language you
specified.
The program exits with a non-zero exit value if either the commandline arguments
failed, a module it depends on wasn't found or the shared mime-info database
wasn't accesable. See File::MimeInfo for more details.
TODO¶
The '--all' switch doesn't really show all matches, but only one per mime-typing
method. This needs to be implemnted in the modules first.
BUGS¶
No known bugs, please mail the author if you find one.
mimetype doesn't provide a switch for looking inside compressed files
because it seems to me that this can only be done by un-compressing the file,
something that defeats the purpose. On the other hand the option should exist
for strict compatibility with
file(1). Possibly a subclass should be
made for this one day.
AUTHOR¶
Jaap Karrssenberg <pardus@cpan.org>
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (c) 2003, 2012 Jaap G Karssenberg. All rights reserved. This program
is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
terms as Perl.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
SEE ALSO¶
file(1),
update-mime-database(1),
File::MimeInfo(3),
http://freedesktop.org/Software/shared-mime-info
<
http://freedesktop.org/Software/shared-mime-info>